Archive for the ‘sports’ Category

This past weekend was the second annual King Con, a comic convention held at the Brooklyn Lyceum. While I was unable to attend due to social obligations (and admittedly I forgot the convention was even happening), King Con wasn’t the only event going on that Sunday. As luck would have it, Sunday was also the New York City Marathon, which runs through all five boroughs for as long as it takes to cross the finish line. The Lyceum happened to be right in the path of the marathon, making it a bit difficult for con-goers to get from the subway to their final destination. Bree Rubin and her webcomic Sex, Drugs and June Cleaver did a strip displaying the Frogger-esque crossing that was necessary that day.

The convention was a four-day affair, so at least there were three unobstructed days to cross the street like a normal human being. Still, I hope that most of the attendees managed to enjoy their unexpected exercise.

Bicycles are the du jour mode of transportation for the “hip” and environmentally-conscious urbanite, with new bike lanes being constructed across the country and workplaces offering “bike friendly” policies as just a couple of examples, which just outline a greater need for bike safety—there were 630 bicycle-related deaths in 2009, and 51,000 injuries.

Perhaps this would be a good time to take a look at Sprocket Man (no connection to Elton John or William Shatner), a bicycling safety comic presented by the US Consumer Product Safety Commission. The art is rough, and the style and content definitely betray a late ’70s/early ’80s vibe—for one thing, they refer to “bike ramps” on sidewalks—but the safety info is still sensible for the most part. Follow the traffic laws! Always be aware of your surroundings! Wear your helmet properly even though it makes you look like a dork!

Tonight the NBA begins its brand new season as the Miami Heat, now with Lebron James in their corner, take on last year’s Eastern Conference Champions, the Boston Celtics. To commemorate the league’s return, ESPN Magazine has teamed with Marvel Comics to produce images of their best players in superhero guises. The talent inside the issue includes Marvel artists Salvador Larocca (Iron Man), Greg Horn (Ms. Marvel), Kyle Baker (Deadpool MAX) and even Marvel Editor-in-Chief, Joe Quesada.

They cover each team in the NBA, calling on different inspiration for each. The most obvious—my favorite of the bunch—is Lebron James inserted into the classic page from Amazing Spider-Man #50, where Peter Parker throws his Spider-Man costume in garbage. This time, Lebron does the same with his Cleveland Cavaliers jersey, much to the chagrin of every Cavaliers fan on the planet.

There’s also Michael Jordan, part owner of the Bobcats, as Nick Fury (looking way too much like Samuel L. Jackson), Mavericks’ owner Mark Cuban as Hank Pym, an adamantium-clad Yao Ming of the Rockets, along with many others living out their superhero fantasies. The issue is on sale now, so you can find it pretty much anywhere magazines are sold. For more images from inside the issue, as well as how Marvel will (or won’t) capitalize on this cross-promotion between branches of Disney, head over to Comics Should Be Good; I am also curious how Marvel will benefit from this exposure, as even though there have been numerous news articles on the subject, there has been a surprising lack of internal ads promoting the issue.

It’s got everything you could ever want, including squinty-eyed teenagers, one of Frazetta’s trademark buxom ladies, and a simple financially-driven reason not to smoke. First you stop smoking, then you get the long board, then you get the women.

We’re all familiar with the practice of courtroom sketches, where news outlets will commission an artist to create drawings of court proceedings when cameras are prohibited from the courtroom.

But are we ready to accept the same practice for the more frenetic world of sports?

In yet another example of sport clubs making a grab for cash any way they can, the Southampton Football Club prohibited press photographers from taking and publishing photos of this season’s matches. Refusing to pay for the “official” images, The Herald instead decided to run comic-like drawings of the season opener created by city historian (and Herald contributor) Chris Robinson.

Given that Japan is losing its fourth Prime Minister in four years, now seems like a good time to talk about Manga no Shimbun, the manga newspaper. Young people just aren’t reading the news these days, and this is an attempt to draw young Japanese back into the world of current events with something they definitely do still read: comics. Each comic posted on the site is an actual news story, depicting the major events of the day in topics such as politics, economics, sports, entertainment, and leisure.

When I was growing up, one of the first comic books I ever read was a baseball comic. It was by some very small publisher and I remember finding it on a spinner rack in a convenience store on East 15th Street and Kings Highway in Brooklyn. The store is still there but the spinner rack is not, much to my chagrin. The comic in question was about All-Star and Hall of Fame center-fielder Mickey Mantle, who was the centerpiece of the New York Yankees outfield for years. I don’t remember much about the title other than its cover, which was striking to me at the time with a somewhat on the money rendition of the famous baseball player. Other than that very issue, baseball comics have not nearly as prevalent as one would expect from a society that coined the game in the first place. I mean sure there were comics back in the 1920’s and 1930’s, but not much modern stuff to come by. In Japan that is very different, with baseball manga found all over, both as biographical and fictional material. I could go on and on about why American society never really embraced baseball comic books but I won’t, for your sake.

Instead, I will go about mentioning a comic book I will be purchasing in about two minutes that is exactly what I was hoping to find.

Satchel Paige: Striking Out Jim Crow is a book written by James Sturm with art by Rick Tommaso that tells the story of Satchel’s career from the eyes of a sharecropper in the American South. For those of you unfamiliar with the name Satchel Paige, he was the first black pitcher in the Major Leagues and the oldest player to make his debut at age 42. In the ComixMix review, Andrew Wheeler describes the book as “profoundly worthy.”

There’s no other reason for Satchel Paige to exist; it’s a book about a man who played baseball so well that even racists had to admit his abilities.

If not for people like Satchel Paige, the game of baseball would be quite a different place today. I’m looking forward to learning more about the guy, especially from the view of an observer as opposed to a straight biography or autobiography. The book is available on Amazon and other retailers for $10 and under, so if you’re looking to get a history of one of the most influential ball players of our time, look no further.